Ozzy Osbourne - I Am Ozzy

Then Sharon and Tony were dragging me on to the back seat of the car, and we were driving round and round, trying to find a doctor. Finally, I was on a bed with all these drips coming out of me, and in a muffled voice I could hear the doc saying to Sharon, ‘Your husband has gone into an alcoholic seizure. It’s very, very serious. We’ve put him on anti-seizure medication, but we’re going to have to keep monitoring him overnight. He might not come out of it.’

Then, little by little, the feeling returned.

Toes first. Then legs. Then chest. I felt like I was being lifted up from deep, deep under the sea. Then, all of a sudden, my ears popped and I could hear an EKG machine behind me.

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

‘How many fingers?’ Sharon was saying. ‘How many fingers, Ozzy?’

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

‘Ozzy, what’s my name? What’s my name?’

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

‘Your name’s Sharon. I’m so sorry, Sharon. I’m so fucking sorry for everything. I love you.’

Clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp.

The copper walks up to the bars of my cell holding a sheet of paper in his hand. I’m looking at him, sweating, breathing fast and shallow, fists balled, wanting to fucking die.

He’s looking back at me.Then he clears his throat and starts to read: John Michael Osbourne, you are hereby charged with the attempted murder by strangulation of your wife,Sharon Osbourne, during a domestic disturbance that took place in the early hours of Sunday, September 3, 1989, at Beel House, Little Chalfont, in the county of Buckinghamshire.

It was like someone had hit me over the head with a shovel. I staggered backwards, fell against the shit-smeared wall, then slumped on to the floor, head in my hands. I wanted to throw up, pass out and scream, all at the same time. Attempted murder? Sharon? This was my worst nightmare. I’m gonna wake up in a minute, I thought. This can’t be happening. ‘I love my wife!’ I wanted to tell the copper. ‘I love my wife, she’s my best friend in the world, she saved my life. Why the fuck would I want to kill my wife?’

But I didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t do anything.

‘I hope you’re proud of yourself,’ said the copper.

‘Is she all right?’ I asked him, when I finally got my voice back.

‘Her husband just tried to kill her. How d’you think she is?’

‘But why would I do that? I don’t understand.’

‘Well, it says here that after returning home from a Chinese restaurant—you’d gone there after celebrating your daughter Aimee’s sixth birthday, during which time you became heavily intoxicated on Russian vodka—you walked into the bedroom naked and said, I quote, “We’ve had a little talk and it’s clear that you have to die.”’

‘I said what?’

‘Apparently, you’d spent the entire night complaining about being overworked, because you’d just come back from the Moscow Festival of Peace—fitting that, ain’t it?—and then you had to go to California. Sounds more like a holiday than work to me.’

‘It can’t be true,’ I said. ‘I’d never try to kill her.’

But of course it could be true. Sharon had been saying for years that she never knew which version of me was going to walk through the front door: Bad Ozzy or Good Ozzy. Usually it was Bad Ozzy. Especially when I’d just come off the road, and I had that horrendous restless feeling. Only this time I’d decided to kill more than my chickens.

‘Another thing,’ said the copper. ‘Your wife told us that if she’d had access to a gun at the time of the assault, she would have used it. Although I see she had a pretty good go at scratching your eyes out. She’s quite a fighter, your missus, isn’t she?’

I didn’t know what to say. So I just tried to make light of it, and said, ‘Well, at least it’ll give the press something to write about.’

The copper didn’t like that.

‘Given the severity of the charges,’ he said, ‘I don’t think this is very fucking funny, do you? You’re up for attempted murder, you piss-head. Your wife could very well be dead if others in the house hadn’t heard her screaming. They’re gonna put you away for a long time, mark my words.’

‘Sharon knows I love her,’ I said, trying not to think of Winson Green and Bradley the child molester.

‘We’ll see about that, won’t we?’

It would be fair to say that the coppers in Amersham jail didn’t take much of a shine to me.

My little dance, my little ego, it didn’t do me any favours in there. I wasn’t the bat-biting, Alamo-pissing, ‘Crazy Train’-singing rock ’n’ roll hero. All that celebrity shit counts for nothing with the Thames Valley Police.

Especially when they’ve locked you up for attempted murder.

They kept me in the cell for about thirty-six hours in the end. The only thing I had for company was the shit up the walls. Apparently Don Arden tried to call me when I was in there. So did Tony Iommi. But they didn’t get through—and I wouldn’t have spoken to them, anyway. A few reporters called, too. The coppers told me they wanted to know if it was true that Sharon was having an affair, or if it was true that I was going back to Jet Records to reform Black Sabbath. Fuck knows where they’d heard all that bullshit from.

All I wanted was to keep my family.

Then I had to go to Beaconsfield Magistrates’ Court. They let me out of the cell to clean myself up a bit first, but whoever had pebble-dashed the walls of the cell had done the same thing to the shower, so I didn’t want to get in. Then Tony Dennis came over with a tuxedo jacket, a black shirt and a pair of earrings. I put it all on and tried to feel smart and respectable, but I was going into severe withdrawal. I looked terrible. I felt terrible. I smelled terrible.

When the time came to leave, the cops walked me through the jail and out of the back door—away from all the press—and bundled me into the back of a cop car. Tony followed close behind in the Range Rover.

The courtroom was a zoo. It was the ‘Suicide Solution’ press conference all over again.

Only this time it was really serious. I was shitting blue cobblers, as my old man used to say.

Don Arden had sent one of his heavies to sit at the back and listen. My accountant Colin Newman was there. The funny thing is I can’t remember if Sharon was there—which probably meant she wasn’t. Thankfully, all the lawyer-talk and gavel-bashing didn’t go on for very long.

‘John Michael Osbourne,’ said the judge, at the end, ‘I’m granting you bail on three conditions: that you immediately enter a certified rehabilitation programme of your choosing; that you do not attempt to make contact with your wife; and that you do not attempt to go back to Beel House. Understand?’

‘Yes, Your Honour. Thank you, Your Honour.’

‘Ozzy!’ went the press. ‘Is it true that Sharon wants a divorce? Is it true about the affair?

Ozzy! Ozzy!’

Tony had already booked me into a rehab place: Huntercombe Manor, about twenty minutes away. On the way we passed a newsagent’s. ‘DEATH THREAT OZZY SENT TO BOOZE CLINIC,’ said the sandwich board outside. It feels strange, y’know, when you see the most private moments of your life put on display like that. Very strange.

Huntercombe Manor was all right. I mean, it wasn’t exactly Palm Springs, but it wasn’t a dump, either. The rate was steep enough: about five hundred quid a night in today’s dough.

After I checked in, I just sat there alone in my room, smoking fags, drinking Coke, feeling very sorry for myself. I wanted to hit the bottle so badly, man—so badly, it physically hurt.

I must have been in that joint for a couple of months in the end.